


Sackcloth

by nicasio_silang



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 01:57:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2490275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicasio_silang/pseuds/nicasio_silang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Someone told me,” she says as she pours, “that pain is a message."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sackcloth

**Author's Note:**

> Written just after 2x05.

“Did it hurt?” 

Abbie asks it while she ties off the thread that she’s stitched through a gash below Crane’s collarbone. A rough dressing done at his living room table because, as she says, _Witnessing doesn’t come with health insurance_. 

The needle is pink with his blood, and he’s breathing through his teeth. Still, he says, “Only marginally. You’ve done a fine job.”

“No, I meant the, um…” 

He looks at her and sees she’s looking at his older wound, the mortal one.

“Ah,” he says.

“Sorry, stupid question. You don’t have to talk about it.”

She clips the end of the thread and leans away to get a bandage. In her brief absence he considers the scar, something he hasn’t done very thoroughly before. It’s pallid, raised at the edges with a valley down the middle, it’s wider at the top and thinner at the bottom. Overall less impressive than a deadly axe wound should be. Abbie straightens and begins bandaging him with a light touch.

“At first I felt nothing at all,” he says into the scant space between them. She meets his eyes briefly, then continues to work. “And when it did begin…to hurt. Even then it was less than I would have imagined such a thing would hurt. It wasn’t too much to bear. Odd, really. I felt perfectly sensible all the time that I was dying.”

She’s done with the bandage. She sits back; he shrugs his shirt fully on. She rises and finds a bottle of bourbon, two tumblers. 

“Someone told me,” she says as she pours, “that pain is a message. It’s your body telling your brain that something is wrong. But your body, it’s not an idiot. It knows when the jig is up. So when it knows that it’s dying, it doesn’t waste energy on pain. It just makes you comfortable before the end.”

Crane accepts a glass from her and drinks. It’s a liquor she prefers, and he’s taken to keeping a stock.

“Miss Mills, you know of course that my injury tonight was exceedingly minor.”

“I know that.”

“Then why the morbid turn?”

“Turn?” She laughs too loud, she takes a sip. “We live morbid.” He could push, but he waits, and eventually she says, “It’s been a year. Since you got here, it’ll be a year this Monday.”

“No,” he says it half-unconsciously as he turns aside and flits his eyes around, seeking some confirmation. There is his coat across the back of the sofa, his books strewn on every flat surface, his enormous, pumpkin-shaped coffee mug from Jenny languishing unwashed by the sink, probably deepening the staining at its bottom by the moment. His pens, his flashlight, his extra hair ties. It’s been a year.

“So we get six more,” Abbie says from the rim of her glass. 

“Yes,” he says, thinking of the percentage of his lifetime, such as it is, that he’s now lived in this 21st century. 

“Then the jig is up,” she says. 

A beat. He frowns, turns to her with a swiftness that pulls his new stitches. 

“Abbie,” he begins.

“When they’ve finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the bottomless pit will make war on them, conquer them, and kill them. And their dead bodies will lie in the street.” She drains her glass. “You’re not the only one with a good memory.”

He says something that starts with _I’m so sorry that_ , but she waves him off. She has her back straight, her knees squared, alert as any soldier. She meets his eyes.

“I’m not. And I’m not feeling sorry for myself. What we’re doing… Not a lot of people get the chance to do something this important. Is it terrifying? Sure. And I,” she shakes her head. “I don’t want to die. And I don’t want you to die. Hell, on my best days I think that if someone can find a way to fuck with destiny and live through this, it’s us.” He grins at her easy profanity.

“I should hope so.”

“But if we don’t? Then I just wanna make sure it’s worth it. Make sure we win. And maybe, I don’t know, relax once a year, have a drink with a friend.” 

She offers another round. He receives it into his glass that wasn’t yet empty. 

“Well, then,” he says. He raises a toast. “To a minimum of six more.” 

Four months later she’s lying limp across the library floor with cold, clammy skin and she won’t move, and she won’t breathe, and all he can do is beg. Give us our appointed time, he begs, let our dead bodies lie in the street. Let the inhabitants of the earth celebrate and gloat over us, let us die, he begs, but not now. Now let her smile.


End file.
